Friday, March 28, 2014

Welcome to the Season Finale of "Teen Wolf." Parting is such sweet sorrow. If you didn’t cry last week with the death of Allison Argent, the opening of this episode will almost certainly squeeze a tear from your cold heart. We begin just moments after Allison’s death. Her father is coaching Scott through the story he’s supposed to give the police. Scott is barely holding himself upright with the help of the fence. He finally asks Papa Argent how he is doing this. The simple reply is “It’s what we do”. When next we see Isaac and Scott, they are being interviewed by Deputy Parrish. They obediently whisper “It happened so fast” as Mr. Argent ordered.

Kira and Stiles have retreated to her parents house, where Noshiko is being rather sympathetic and helpful. She and her husband advise Stiles on the game of Go, and that the Nogitsune has had the advantage all of this time. They claim that Stiles needs a “Divine Move” to win this game, only no one is feeling divinely inspired at the moment.
Isaac goes home with Mr. Argent, who wastes no time in telling him he doesn’t need any help, that he can compartmentalize his feelings. “I can’t” Isaac whispers brokenly. The two hug it out. Isaac finds himself sitting in Allison’s bedroom playing with her knives. Papa Argent takes them away before he hurts himself. Isaac then remembers to tell him that Allison was trying to leave a message for her father when she died. He then has an epiphany and realizes that it must have been a silver arrowhead that killed the Oni. They rush downstairs to find four arrowheads remaining. Mr. Argent is back to looking scary as he vows to kill them all.

The Nogitsune, still wearing his Stiles’ suit, shows up at the hospital with a couple of his new demon ninja friends. They commence killing people while they search for Melissa McCall. She happens to be upstairs having a talk with her ex-husband. It seems he was planning on leaving town after his fight with Scott. She proceeds to tell him he’s an idiot. Unaware of what is happening on the lower floors of the hospital, they get on the elevator. The door opens to blood, mayhem, and Oni. As Raf McCall pushes Melissa behind him, the Oni still manage to slice her leg. He gets the door closed and turns to her bleeding on the floor. Black smoke curls up from the wound and she starts screaming in pain.

A similar scene is playing out in the police station. Deputy Parrish and the Sheriff are talking by his desk, when Parrish sees black smoke puff up behind one of the other deputies. Two more Oni are there and start slicing up the officers. They open fire on the demon ninjas, but it doesn’t really do much good. Despite pulling out a very large shotgun, the Sheriff still gets cut and the Oni vanish as black smoke puffs up from all of their wounds.

Scott and Lydia have been consulting with Deaton about how to save Stiles while disposing of the Nogitsune. They realize that the real reason the creature was trapped before was because of the power of the Nemeton. Unfortunately that was before the Big Tree was cut down. Lydia has the brilliant idea of the box that held Talia’s claws. Deaton is familiar with it, since he actually made it for her from the Nemeton’s wood. They contact Derek to bring them the box. He has been busy trying to heal up the Twins, and then convince them to fight for Scott’s Pack. They’ve spent all of this time trying to get him to accept them, and just when he needs them they decide to leave town. Well, Derek gives a very impassioned speech tolling all of Scott’s many virtues and his refusal to ever stop fighting for his friends.

Kira and Stiles have pondered the Divine Move long and hard and show up to collect Scott and Lydia. We aren’t quite sure what the Move is going to be, but they show up at the high school. However, as soon as they enter the doors, they are suddenly in a wintry landscape that looks just like the fountain where Argent’s Nogitsune was killed. Kira realizes they are in Bardo, a place between life and death. Well hell, they were supposed to be in high school. Actually, that’s a pretty good analogy. Carry on. From out of the shadows, the bandaged, toothy visage of the Nogitsune creepily limps out. He should really see a chiropractor for that.

The Nogitsune proclaims at length that he is going to kill every single person that Stiles’ loves. The Demon Fox then launches into an explanation of the ancient Samurai ritual of Seppuku. This is that lovely story we’ve all heard where the samurai disembowels himself to save his honor, and his kaishakunin then uses his own katana to chop off his head. He explains just in case the teenagers don’t know Japanese traditions. Essentially, he wants Stiles to disembowel himself and then let his best friend cut off his head. This is the only way to save all of the people who have been cut by the Oni’s blades that day. They have also attacked Deaton, while they’ve been having this little chat. Since Scott isn’t about to kill his best friend, they commence the fighting. Now, interestingly enough, Derek and the Twins have shown up outside with the Triskelion Box. Only, Evil Stiles (or Void-Stiles) and his Demon Ninjas are blocking the way. Hmm. How could the Nogitsune be in so many places at once? The fight gets started outside the school too.

Back in Bardo, Kira and Scott are doing all of the fighting. Sadly, they aren’t getting anywhere. Exhausted, Stiles’ picks up Kira’s fallen katana and prepares to kill himself. Sensing victory, the Nogitsune, presses his advantage and goads him further along. He demands that Scott kill his friend to save everyone else. Just as it appears that Stiles is going to go through with it, he catches a reflection in the katana’s shiny blade. It’’s the reflection of a school desk. They are still in the high school; all of this is just an illusion. He imparts this great wisdom while bragging of his Divine Move to the Nogitsune. The friends then line up and basically run a gauntlet of Oni blades to escape the room. When the push through the doors, they emerge into the high school’s hallway.

The fight outside the school isn’t going so well. Derek and the Twins are putting up a good fight, but they can’t keep the Oni down. At least not until Argent and Isaac show up with Allison’s silver arrowheads. He quickly uses a crossbow to take three of the Oni down, but the fourth manages to catch and break the arrow. Isaac grabs the Triskelion Box and heads into the school. Argent yells for them to get the arrow; it’s the last silver arrowhead. Aiden does the honors and scoops it up and stabs the last Oni with it, while simultaneously getting a katana in the gut. As the Oni disintegrates, he falls to the ground as Ethan rushes toward him. Now as soon as Evil Stiles senses a turning of the tides, he vanishes into the school looking for his nemesis. Sure enough, he catches up to the teens screaming “I’m a thousand years old, you can’t kill me!” Apparently they can’t kill him, but just like the scroll said, they can transform him. Scott pops up behind the Nogitsune and bites him on the arm while Kira stabs him in the back. It seems that the Nogitsune can’t be a fox and a werewolf. This is enough to make him expel his little bug shaped self, which flaps down the hall until Isaac scoops him into the box and locks it inside. The Stiles Suit the Nogitsune had made cracks and falls into dust. Before they can celebrate, Lydia senses what has happened to Aiden and runs outside to find his brother holding his corpse. I guess the damage from the mysterious shooter was too much to let him heal. The happy news, is that everyone who was dying from an Oni cut, is now all better. I’m so glad; I was afraid that Melissa was going to die and leave us alone with Agent McCall.

Life quickly gets back to some semblance of normalcy in Beacon Hills. Ethan and Danny have a chat in the stairwell. Ethan is telling him that he just can’t stay without his brother. Danny says that’s okay it wasn't going to work out anyway, with Ethan being a werewolf and all. Ethan is only very briefly astonished that Danny knows about werewolves. Danny nonchalantly throws out that “This is Beacon Hills”. Is that code for Hellmouth I wonder? Anyway, in the hallway, Kira is chattering incessantly to Lydia about not knowing how to reach out to the Wolf Pack, because she’s just the new girl you know. She’s not the new girl for long; Malia is walking down the hall with Coach. Aww, it looks like Stiles might get an actual girlfriend next season. We then get a brief glimpse of Scott helping Malia figure out her coyote transformation while Stiles watches.

But wait, there’s more! Beacon Hills has one last surprise for us folks. Derek is attacked by some mean looking guys with a lot of weaponry in his loft. They are Hunters obviously. When they demand to know where the “she-wolf” is, he replies that they will never find Cora. It quickly becomes obvious that they don’t know who he’s talking about. Then a smoke grenade flies into the room and the men are picked off one by one. Then it’s Derek’s turn. A shotgun blast throws him backwards. As Derek looks frantically around a familiar figure carrying a shotgun saunters out of the smoke. It’s Kate Argent back from the dead. She has one last surprise, she turns into an interesting cat-like creature with green eyes. Given that they are still calling her a she-wolf, I'm a little confused. So I guess she's some sort of new critter we will learn about next season. The look suits her though, she was always pretty catty.

The next season of "Teen Wolf" is scheduled to return June 23, 2014 on MTV.